Thursday, June 16, 2005
Vauxhall Astra Sport Hatch 1.8 16v
I AM not sure fleets deserve the Astra Sport Hatch. In fact, at this price and with these looks, I’m not sure anybody deserves this car. It almost feels like cheating.
Surely a high-selling three-door hatch from a volume manufacturer with a 1.8-litre petrol engine for about £15,000 should be a sensible but mundane piece of kit. It should do its job quietly and studiously and not be seen making a fuss. Car rental uk
But the wild-looking Sport Hatch is an unexpected mould breaker. To own a car this alluring, shouldn’t you be paying much more money?
Quite simply, the sharp, raked shoulders and long, low sweeping roofline make this a car plenty of company car drivers, used to putting up with whatever comes their way, can be proud to own. Car rental uk
Driving around in it, I was utterly amazed by the amount of attention it received. For example, I found three young women, all with apparently good taste (in other words, they weren’t the type of Vicky Pollard, shotgun-riders-in-Max Power-cars that might have been attracted to hot Astras in the past), standing round it cooing in appreciation.
I would be willing to eat any hat I own if this sort of thing has ever happened in the history of the Astra before, and it shows just what a trick Ford has missed with the meek styling of the new Focus. Car rental uk
But the Sport Hatch is not just about cool, low-slung side windows and razored alloys. Underneath the chiselled muscles are good, honest Vauxhall mechanicals, well proven in the thousands of five-door Astras already sold. So it looks good, and you can depend on it to run reliably.
But the 123bhp 1.8-litre engine feels underpowered, although much of that is because it’s a car which looks as if it should be a scorcher, even when sitting still, so you’re psychologically set up for that. An equivalently-sized diesel would be quicker. Car rental uk
Surely a high-selling three-door hatch from a volume manufacturer with a 1.8-litre petrol engine for about £15,000 should be a sensible but mundane piece of kit. It should do its job quietly and studiously and not be seen making a fuss. Car rental uk
But the wild-looking Sport Hatch is an unexpected mould breaker. To own a car this alluring, shouldn’t you be paying much more money?
Quite simply, the sharp, raked shoulders and long, low sweeping roofline make this a car plenty of company car drivers, used to putting up with whatever comes their way, can be proud to own. Car rental uk
Driving around in it, I was utterly amazed by the amount of attention it received. For example, I found three young women, all with apparently good taste (in other words, they weren’t the type of Vicky Pollard, shotgun-riders-in-Max Power-cars that might have been attracted to hot Astras in the past), standing round it cooing in appreciation.
I would be willing to eat any hat I own if this sort of thing has ever happened in the history of the Astra before, and it shows just what a trick Ford has missed with the meek styling of the new Focus. Car rental uk
But the Sport Hatch is not just about cool, low-slung side windows and razored alloys. Underneath the chiselled muscles are good, honest Vauxhall mechanicals, well proven in the thousands of five-door Astras already sold. So it looks good, and you can depend on it to run reliably.
But the 123bhp 1.8-litre engine feels underpowered, although much of that is because it’s a car which looks as if it should be a scorcher, even when sitting still, so you’re psychologically set up for that. An equivalently-sized diesel would be quicker. Car rental uk
# posted by Liz Laurie @ 2:50 AM 
